Hanging On
by insaneular
Summary: Drabble of Toph's final thoughts as she hangs from the airship during Sozin's Comet.


Blind.

She'd been born blind, but had had no anticipation of dying blind for as long as she could remember – for as long as she could earthbend.

But here, in her last moments, she was just as blind as her parents believed her to be. There was nothing around her but nothingness.

With nothing to see, her thoughts whirled. Some people might be glad to die blindly, she supposed, as the final blow might be less painful if it was unexpected. She would fall, fall, fall, and be dead before she even knew there was nowhere left to fall.

And yet it still unsettled her. Where was she falling? She had no idea whether she was above the land, a forest, the ocean – not that it would matter once, once she was dead, but she would have liked to know where her final resting place would be. If she'd had any say in the matter, she wouldn't want to fall into the sea. She couldn't swim, and drowning would be a slow, sad death. She hoped that they were passing over a plain, an open expanse of earth. She'd go _splat_ and that would be that, the greatest earthbender in the world smeared upon the rock for some other earthbender to mop up.

Another con of drowning, she realized, was that they'd never find her body. She'd rot down there, fade from memory, be forgotten. She hadn't given it much thought before – she thought funerals were usually overemotional and pointless – but she didn't want to simply vanish, a war casualty. If not for her own sake, for her parents', she hoped that her body would be found so they could bury her and grieve in whatever extravagant or plain manner they pleased.

She wanted to ask Sokka to give this message, her dying wish, she realized, to her parents, but the words didn't come. Whether it was because of her own grief, her fearful realization that Sokka may not survive either to relay the message, or simply due to a parched, hoarse, throat, she didn't know.

Blind in the face of death, although she still had her other senses, and they painted a vivid enough picture of what was going on. Sounds: the dull, grinding roar of engines; the screech of metal upon metal, the _whoosh_ of comet-empowered firebending; Sokka's terrified yelps as he did his best to dodge said fire blasts; and threatening to drown the rest out, the whipping of the wind across her face, and beneath her feet.

She inhaled deeply to search for different scents, perhaps hidden underneath the overwhelming scent of smoke, but only ended up choking on the acrid air.

Touch, always her strongest sense. The most physical of any of them. Natural for an earthbender, and adapted even further by her. When she was touching the earth, she saw more clearly than anyone else.

But here, stranded in the air, her feet hung below her uselessly. She could feel nothing but the wind.

Except for her right hand. The one bright spot in the dark, the one thing she could feel, the only thing keeping her from falling, the one thing tethering her to this word. Sokka's fiercely tight grip kept her from slipping away and becoming just a sad story, a cautionary tale of why children should never run away from home. _Be good, children_, they'd say, _or you'll only end up falling from a warship like that Toph Bei Fong._

They _would_ be saying that, except for Sokka's hand. It was the only thing she could "see" in her traditional manner, and so she took in every detail of it. Her fingers clenched around the worn, leathery texture of Sokka's warrior gloves, her pinky grazing the cool surface of the metal plate on the back. The strong, sinewy muscles of his wrist, stretched taut with the veins straining out from the stress of her weight.

She was pulled from her daze for a moment at the sound of many footsteps and Sokka letting out a startled grunt. In his shock, his grip loosened for a split second, and as their hands started to slip apart, Toph knew it was the end. She started mentally saying her goodbyes, but then, she was pulled back once again. Sokka curled his fingers tightly, and kept her from plummeting into the open air.

Her sight was different now, and she returned to taking in as many details as she could, since it may well be her last. Her fingers locked so tightly against Sokka's that she could feel the muscles and bones in each, shaking dangerously under the burden, but holding. His fingers were slick with sweat, as were hers, due to both the heat of battle and the heat of the world burning below them. He dug his fingernails into her knuckles to compensate, and it was strangely comforting. Sokka could've let her go, and he would have had a slim to decent chance of making it out alive, but he kept clinging to her hand, even if she brought him down, too. She didn't regret that this hand would be her last sight.

But there was only so long fingers could support body weight. She felt the hand in hers shudder as Sokka choked, "I don't think boomerang is coming back, Toph."

She wanted to stay strong. She knew what was coming, but her eyes still filled with tears and threatened to run down her cheeks despite herself. She strained her neck so her face pointed upward, and she hoped made eye contact with Sokka. Obviously it didn't make any real difference, but it felt appropriate.

"It looks like this is the end."

She steeled her nerves one last time and prepared to die.


End file.
